I exited a crowded bus and inhaled the fresh air, happy to leave the stuffiness of the confined space. That was not my only reason, however, for being happy. I was finally home, in the small Russian scientific town of Puchshino, several miles away from Moscow. The greenness of its countless tree-adorned alleys and the smell of the flowers, so characteristic of the month of June, hit me all at once, filling me with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia.
I once heard somewhere that dogs become easily attached to the people they are around, always preferring companionship over solitude, whereas cats, with their everlasting longing for independence, develop a love for their surroundings rather than for the people. I have always considered myself a “cat person” perhaps due to my childhood obsession with these graceful creatures or maybe to my rather taciturn nature or, most likely, both.
That day, however, I came to Puchshino not only for the sightseeing, but also to meet my childhood friend Dasha, who I haven’t seen for four years while I was living in America. She was as beautiful as ever, almost completely unchanged. Her rounded face, soft gray eyes and light hair gave her face the kind of look that seemed to be in perfect unison with her personality – cheerful, intelligent, friendly, deep – all of these rolled into one unified, truly wonderful whole.
As the two of us walked along the narrow streets of our small town to our old school, we laughed and joked, pointing at the sights seen by our eyes hundreds of times before, but gaining some new level of significance now that we felt forever detached from them. Yet it was close to our hearts. Why else would we walk two kilometers, merely to look at the brick building, which we wished so much to abandon forever some four years ago? It was a part of our childhood, a part of what made us who we are now, in some intangible way shaping our personalities. The school building looked ugly and old, its walls covered with quite disturbing graffiti, and the stadium behind it was practically begging for a renovation, but their significance, the memories they arose did not require beauty to sustain them.
However, as I boarded the bus to go home to Obninsk all I could think about was Dasha. I was carried away in a cloud of exhaust, leaving Puchshino far behind me maybe even forever; yet I did not seem to care. That town is a part of me, but it is still merely a town, and whatever I feel for it could not come into any comparison with what I feel for Dasha. Tears rolled down my cheeks, tears of sadness -- not over leaving Puchshino, crossing its final boundary, for me, nearly symbolically marked by the Oka River, but because I was already missing the only human being I truly loved.
I guess I am a “dog person” after all.
